In a supersymmetric theory, all interactions are to be symmetric under the ex- change of bosons and fermions - the superpartners. However, supersymmetry must be an explicitly yet softly broken symmetry of nature, and supersymmetry breaking parameters, the so-called soft terms, give rise to various phenomena observable at LHC and future experiments, such as ILC. The mixing among different flavors of matter - the flavor violation - is one such phenomenon which exhibits a strong dependence on the structure of the soft terms. In particular, decoupling of superpartners from the particle spectrum at a threshold energy near the ultraviolet scale of the standard model induces sizeable corrections to flavor violating interactions. These corrections are strong enough to disqualify an otherwise viable high-scale flavor model by a con- frontation with experiments at low energy. This work focusses a class of flavor models, following from strings or supergravity, and provides a through analysis of their sensitivities to supersymmetric threshold corrections.

The discovery of asymptotic freedom in the theory of the strong interaction has initiated the high-energy heavy-ion collisions program. It is expected such collisions to produce a deconfined phase of quarks and gluons. The prediction of the phase transition to occur in the vicinity of non-pQCD regime increase the challenges at the theoretical and experimental levels. The Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC) at Brookhaven National Laboratory was constructed to explore the QGP-hadronic matter phase transition.

We are now living a new era of development of nuclear sciences thanks to the discovery of exotic or unstable nuclei. The Odyssey to reach the limits of stability is pushing nuclear sciences to unexpected discoveries and to a redefinition of its scope and methods. This is a step-by-step revolution that is both experimentally and theoretically a scientific challenge and an exciting cultural progress. The description of unstable systems requires a reconsideration of the role of the continuum that increases its importance near the drip-lines. Typically by moving from the valley of stability outward, the bound excited states of the stable nucleus are shifted to the continuum, forming low-lying resonances. The coupling to these states becomes of fundamental importance for the description of nuclear reactions. At the same time the coupling to non-resonant continuum states becomes more relevant. The 'file rouge' of the present thesis is to link different aspects of the complexity of the continuum spectrum in nuclear structure and nuclear reactions involving both stable and unstable nuclei either as tools or as subject of our study.

Quantum Chromodynamics (QCD) views hadrons as bound states of quarks and gluons. However, hadron structure studies involve non-perturbative aspects of QCD- confinement and chiral symmetry breaking which makes it a challenging task to understand. Considerable progress has been achieved through Non- Relativistic Quark Model which is based on very simple assumptions and gives a remarkable fit to many of the hadron spectroscopy data. However, starting with the observations in 1988 by the European Muon Collaboration, in the last decade or so extremely important information pertaining to spin and flavor structure of the proton have been discovered in the deep inelastic scattering experiments. The present experimental information is in contradiction with the predictions of Non- Relativistic Quark Model which referred to as "proton spin problem." The chiral constituent quark model probes the regime between the confinement scale and the chiral symmetry breaking scale. Several current experimental initiatives in this direction indicate the importance of the problem for high energy physics community.

The MSSM possesses many new sources of flavor violation. In addition to the minimally flavor-violating interactions involving the CKM matrix there are terms which have a priori a generic flavor structure (including possible complex phases) stemming from the supersymmetry-breaking sector. Especially, the trilinear A-terms can have an important effect on flavor-violating observables because they are both chirality and flavor violating. In the presence of generic sources of flavor-violation processes mediated by squarks and gluinos are of special interest because they involve the strong coupling constant. This would lead to dangerously large effects, which would be in contradiction with experiment if the flavor structure were arbitrary. The difficulty to explain why the soft-supersymmetry breaking terms are approximately universal, or aligned to the quark sector, is known as the "SUSY flavor problem."

Industrial gamma irradiators are designed for processing large amounts of products, which are exposed to large gamma radiation doses. The irradiation, in industrial scale, is usually carried out in a dynamic form, where products go around a Co-60 gamma source with activity of about PBq (MCi). In some situations (research purposes or validation process according to norm ISO 11137), it is required to irradiate small samples within fractional deliver doses. Samples are placed inside the irradiation room at a fixed distance from the source and the dose is usually determined by using dosimeters, therefore the dose is only known after completed the irradiation. Usually different kinds of products with different densities go through between the source and static position samples. So, the dose rate varies in function of product density. A suitable methodology would be to monitor samples dose in real time, which would improve dose accuracy, avoiding the overdose. A cylindrical 0.9 cm3 ionization chamber has been developed for high-doses real-time monitoring, when the sample is being irradiated at a static position in a Co-60 gamma industrial plant.

Strongly interacting (QCD) matter is expected to exhibit a multifaceted phase structure: a hadron gas at low temperatures, a quark-gluon plasma at very high temperatures, nuclear matter in the low-temperature and high-density region, color superconductors at high densities. Most of the conjectured phases cannot yet be scrutinized by experiments but are based on model calculations. This monograph investigates the phases of QCD using a nonlocal covariant extension of the Nambu und Jona-Lasinio (NJL) model. This allows one to take into account the running of the QCD coupling strength at high and instanton physics at low energy scales. Gluon dynamics is implemented at finite temperatures and densities by coupling the nonlocal NJL model to a gluonic background field (expressed in terms of the Polyakov loop P). The thermodynamics of the resulting PNJL model describes both the chiral and the color-deconfinement transition. We obtain results in mean-field approximation, and extend them by including mesonic contributions to thermodynamic quantities. The phase-diagram region of finite density is investigated. A derivation of the nonlocal PNJL model from QCD first principles is also given.

Observables from vector meson photoproduction by linearly-polarized photons can be expressed in term of bilinear combinations of helicity amplitudes parameterized by the Spin Density Matrix Elements (SDMEs). These SDMEs give straightforward relations for understanding the nature of the parity exchange at threshold energies, as well as for extracting signatures of the Okubo-Zweig-Iizuka violation. Measurement of SDMEs for p p in the photon energy range of 1.7 to 1.9 GeV(momentum transfer squared t range of 1.2 to 0.25 GeV2 ) and 1.9 to 2.1 GeV (t range of 1.4 to 0.25 GeV2 ) from the g8b experimental data collected in the summer of 2005 in the Hall B of Jefferson Lab are reported herein.

The first part of this book introduces the basic principles necessary to understand silicon strip detectors in general and the specific implementation for the CMS experiment. It features an in- depth discussion of the fundamental background on semiconductor technology, which is followed by the most important aspects of designing and manufacturing a modern silicon strip sensor. A short introduction into the CMS experiment and its silicon tracker complements the first part. In the second part, the luminosity upgrade of the LHC accelerator (sLHC) is discussed and the challenges it poses to the CMS tracker. A review of the current findings of the RD50 collaboration tries to identify a sufficiently radiation hard base material while the subsequent chapter concentrates on quality assurance. In the final chapter a new interconnection technique between sensor and readout electronics is introduced and the results from first test prototypes are discussed.

This book gives the theoretical description and practical measurement of the neutron and gamma spatial distribution in the radial experimental channel at VR-1 research reactor. For providing these measurements two experimental techniques were explained and used: off-line and on-line methods. On-line measurement of neutron spatial distribution was performed with He-3 gas filled detector. From off-line measurements Neutron Activation Analysis (for neutron detection) and Thermoluminescent method (for gamma radiation detection) were chosen. Obtained results from the experiments were compared with the results from the MCNP code in order to verify their correctness.

In this work Paul Sorensen has analyzed the production of mesons and baryons in heavy-ion collisions at Brookhaven's Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC). In 2005, physicists at RHIC created the most perfect fluid in nature, called quark-gluon plasma, a hot, dense matter formed out of quarks and gluons that permeated the universe one microsecond after its birth. Sorensen's work plays a key role in elucidating that the flow of matter in the heavy-ion collisions is dominated by subatomic particles called quarks, indicating that quark-gluon plasma had been created. Sorensen's work helped discover quark number scaling in the elliptic flow of hadrons in nucleus-nucleus collisions, and he develops the interpretation showing the relevance of quark degrees of freedom in heavy ion interactions.

By higher-spin (HS) field one means generalizations of the electromagnetic potential or of the metric fluctuation that transform under arbitrary representations of the Lorentz group. Conceptual difficulties have long been identified in attempts to couple massless higher-spin modes in a Minkowski background. However, the key classic no-go theorems typically do not apply in the presence of infinite numbers of them. String Theory clearly leads the way to date, since its spectra involves a plethora of massive HS modes, however, a key question is whether String Theory itself is part of a more general structure for higher-spin interactions, and what role it possibly plays in it. For massive fields, one expects that an effective Lagrangian description be possible below the scale of their masses, and therefore in this Thesis String Theory is taken as a starting point to exhibit for the first time a number of couplings involving higher-spin modes. The novelty is here the explicit computation of tree-level scattering amplitudes for massive modes. The Weyl calculus allows to present the whole set of cubic and quartic string couplings and the resulting currents in a suggestive form.

Microscopic calculations often consider particles placed in single- particle energy levels subject to two-body interactions. In order to reproduce collective phenomena one relies on the computer power to study the system in huge model spaces. Ultimately, such simulations will describe collectivity adequately, but the understanding of the phenomena and their symmetry roots are rarely advanced. It is the goal of this work to illustrate that if one uses basis with built in collectivity one could describe the collective phenomena better and would also advance their understanding. The text contains: (a) the nuclear shell model in spherical and Elliot's SU(3) basis; (b) the harmonic oscillator in a one-dimensional box as a toy model of a two-mode system; (c) generalized eigenvalue problem and the geometrical visualization of the oblique shell- model basis; (d) illustrative systems such as 24Mg and 44Ti in oblique basis; (e) Study of the SU(3) symmetry and measuring the its breaking for pf-shell nuclei. This text could be of value to professors and advanced students who are pursuing research in unconventional computational methods for quantum many-body systems.

Compton effect is one of the interactions between an incident radiation and electron in the target atom. Compton scattering is the predominant mode of interaction in the incident energy range from 0.1 to 1 MeV. This technique measures one dimensional momentum distribution and thereby information on the electron wave functions is obtained. Experimentally Compton profiles measure the projection of electron momentum distribution on a line and hence provide considerable complimentary information on the basic aspects of physics and practical applications in industry and technology. Systematic and accurate experimental Compton profile data of some high Z and rare earth elements are presented in this book. The book is divided into five chapters including introduction, theoretical resume on Compton profiles, experimental procedure, results and discussion, and conclusions.

One of the least understood areas of the plasma particle or heat transport is the turbulent transport. In this work the main focus is on the development and data analysis of anomalous transport characteristics (transport coefficients and fluxes) under fusion conditions in large tokamaks. Fluid and gyro-kinetic models are used and obtained results are compared. A model based on fractional kinetics for the study of the SOL turbulent transport characteristics, where non-Gaussian PDFs are observed, is developed.

Nuclear fusion is the key to forming the world's most exotic nuclei, nuclei which hold a key to understanding our universe. The complex production and study of these exotic nuclei, which are not naturally produced on the Earth, is underway at heavy ion accelerators around the globe. This book is a study of two mechanisms which inhibit nuclear fusion, namely breakup and quasifission. The understanding of these processes is currently one of the most intriguing and challenging problems in nuclear physics. For light weakly bound nuclei, breakup is the process which suppresses fusion at above-barrier energies, while at the other end of the scale, in reactions of heavy nuclei, quasifission hinders the formation of heavy and superheavy elements. Current quantum mechanical reaction models are not able to provide a full description of either of these processes. This book is addressed to PhD scholars and nuclear scientists with the essential purpose of providing a comprehensive insight into the complex dynamics of breakup and quasifission.

The spontaneous breaking of the spherical symmetry in the nuclear many-body problem is a long-established and thoroughly-studied topic. This work focuses in particular on octupole correlations, which cause the atomic nucleus to dynamically assume intrinsic reflection-asymmetric shapes such as a "pear" or "banana" shape. The most relevant fingerprints of these correlations are presented, along with the gamma-spectroscopy techniques that make it possible to identify them. The case of the nuclear species Barium-124 and Barium-125, populated in a fusion-evaporation reaction in which Nickel-64 projectiles impinged on a Nickel-64 target, is in particular addressed. It is shown how both barium isotopes do exhibit signatures of octupole correlations, i.e. low-lying negative-parity excited states and numerous electric-dipole transitions linking opposite-parity energy levels. It is also shown how these experimental results are consistent with theoretical expectations, as 56, the atomic number of Barium, corresponds to a single-particle configuration in which the proton Fermi level lies in the proximity of a pair of orbitals strongly coupled by the octupole interaction, i.e. h11/2 and d5/2.

Variational Monte Carlo (VMe methods are extensively used for problems in molecular, condensed matter and nuclear physhcs. Quantum Monte Carlo methods offer an effective way to deal with many body problems in nuclear physics. The nuclear Hamiltonian has a compicated operator form with several terms. The variational wave function suggested on physical grounds also has a complex correlation structure. In this work nuclei with mass no. A = 3 to 6 ate treated under VMC framework. Several improvements in the variational wave function are suggested and VMC calculations are performed using potentials that include the Argonne V-18 and the three body Urbana -IX. Space exchange effects present in lambda hypernuclei are also briefly looked into. The nuclear hamiltonian, the variational wave function and the Monte Carlo technique is described in detail.

According to DAB hypothesis, fission products behaviors in different ecosystems could be interpreted, and actual field data, including minor health effects, are explained in a very wide coincidence. DAB hypothesis represents a tool for interpreting the reduced radiological impact in the environment, reduced health effects of FP and consequently to reduce their radiophobia, as well as to reduce radiation protection and nuclear safety expenses. This lays a stress on DAB hypothesis as a good tool to interpret FP behavior and that the assumptions used in DAB construction are more near to the scientific facts than other assumptions like hyperstoichiometric media or atom diffusion

The correlated basis function theory is applied to the study of medium-heavy doubly closed shell nuclei with different wave functions for protons and neutrons and in the jj coupling scheme. State dependent correlations including tensor correlations are used. Realistic two-body interactions of Argonne and Urbana type, together with three-body interactions have been used to calculate ground state energies and density distributions of the carbon, oxygen, calcium, lead nuclei.

The dissipative nuclear reaction mechanism in low energy light heavy-ion collisions have been studied. Inclusive energy distributions for various fragments and light charged particles have been measured in a wide angular range in several reactions. In the 20Ne+12C reaction, the fragment yield was mostly from the equilibrium decay of composite system, although the cross-sections for B, C, N fragments were higher than the statistical model predictions. This enhancement in cross-section indicated the survival of orbiting-like phenomenon at the energy > 7 MeV/nucleon. The composite system is also deformed. In 20Ne+27Al reaction, both deep-inelastic and fusion-fission processes were found to contribute significantly to the fragment yield. The time scale for the deep-inelastic process was 10-22 seconds. It has been found that the extracted values of angular momentum dissipation were more than the corresponding phenomenological (sticking) limit predictions for light fragments. In addition, in- plane coincidence data gives information about the decay of the hot composite formed 20Ne+12C reaction at 158 MeV.

A partial wave analysis of K]-nucleon scattering in the momentum range from 0 to 1.5 GeV/c addresing the uncertainties of the results and comparing them with several previous analyses. It is found that the treatment of the reaction threshold behaviour is particularly important. It is found a T=0 scattering length which is not consistent with zero, as has been claimed by other analyses. The T=0 phase shifts for l>0 are consistent with a pure spin-orbit potential. Some indications for the production of a T=0 pentaquark with spin-parity D5/2+ are discussed. Differential cross sections for the reactions 12C, 6Li and 40Ca are calculated using the presents results from the phase shifts and also the work from Hyslop et al. and Martin's phase shifts. The ratio for the three elements to deuterium are showed.